By Katy Grimes ——Bio and Archives--January 13, 2016
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"99 Rise is working with over 30 different organizations, including Move On, Dream Defenders, Wolf PAC, San Francisco Green Party and several Occupy groups, and has been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Lessig, Dolores Huerta and several other individuals. Close to a thousand citizens have pledged to risk arrest by engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience for democracy. The march and occupation add tangible nonviolent direct action to a broad campaign to get money out of politics."Journalism professor Edward Wasserman, dean of the journalism graduate school at the University of California-Berkeley, weighed in on the nearly identical situation in Colorado with Watchdog reporter Arthur Kane. Wasserman said Colorado's process blurs ethical boundaries and subverts the First Amendment. "To the degree that (journalists are) now beholden to the government for letting us come in and get a benefit, they might not write something the government doesn't like," Wasserman said. "It's a very subtle lever of influence." "University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism professor Robert E. Drechsel, who is director of the Center for Journalism Ethics, also commented, and agreed the government has no business sanctifying journalists, but he wasn't sure what approach the state could take to ferreting out political operatives," Kane wrote. "Who will you trust to make these decisions if not a journalist in an advisory role?" he asked, adding that legislators in other states, including Wisconsin, have had similar quandaries. "None of these are particularly desirable ways. Maybe someone has to come up with a criteria people can agree on and find a way to apply that criteria in a way people are comfortable with." This is a clipped response I received from Jim Miller, President of the CCAC Board, and reporter for The Sacramento Bee: "The board voted unanimously to recommend the denial of the application. Association bylaws "prohibit the credentialing of any applicant employed by or receiving any compensation, directly or indirectly, from any lobbyist or lobbying association, any state office holder or candidate for state office."
The CCAC Board is made up of Jim Miller with the Sacramento Bee, and CCAC President, Laura Mahoney - Bloomberg, J. Dale Debber - Providence Publications, Katie Orr - Capital Public Radio, Michael Marois - Bloomberg News, Judy Lin - Associated Press, Sharokina Shams -- KCRA television.Given the hassles every year with my credentialing process, I am not altogether surprised my application was denied. What does surprise me is that it is members of the media and Capitol Correspondents Association of CA doing the denying when the mission of the CCAC clearly states its purpose is to make it easier for news professionals who cover the state Capitol to do their jobs; and: It also acts as an advocate for open meetings, news media access, freedom of information issues and the fair distribution of public information. It strikes me that this is totalitarianism -- what they apparently want is total agreement. They are saying that I do not have the right to hold a different opinion, even as a minority view. The CCAC and Legislature is attacking me without quarter, and depriving me of my status in my profession, as well as denying me the access they enjoy. "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."--Harry Truman
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Katy Grimes is an investigative journalist, Senior Correspondent with the Flash Report, ReaganBabe, and Senior Media Fellow with Energy and Environmental Institute. A longtime political analyst, she has written for The Sacramento Union, The Washington Examiner, Watchdog.org, The Pacific Research Institute’s CalWatchdog, The San Francisco Examiner, The Business Journal, E&E Legal, The Sacramento Bee, Legal Insurrection, Canada Free Press, and Laura Ingraham’s LifeZette, and can be heard regularly on many talk radio shows each week.